The Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) told 8 Investigates that a records request aimed at exposing the agency for failing to pay thousands of dollars it owed to day care providers would cost over $250,000 to fulfill and take four years.

According to the outlet, they submitted a Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request for public records to the DHHS last September after they received multiple tips from daycare owners claiming that the agency had delayed sending them funds they earned by caring for foster children.

One daycare proprietor told 8 Investigates that the DHHS owed her $33,000 in back pay, which took two years for her to collect.

Following up on the tips, the news outlet filed a FOAA request with the DHHS, asking for a spreadsheet containing two years’ worth of data showing when they received each daycare invoice and when each payment went out.

That data, public information under Maine’s FOAA laws, would have allowed the outlet to determine exactly how long it took the DHHS to pay every invoice, thereby letting them see how often the government organization failed to pay and identify whether it was specifically targeting certain daycares for delays.

Maine’s FOAA laws require the recipient of a public information request to acknowledge it within five business days and provide a “good faith,” non-binding estimate of how long it will take to comply with the request.

Agencies are also allowed to charge a typically small fee for the compilation of data if the request is determined to be burdensome and time-consuming for government officials.

In response to the news outlet’s request, DHHS claimed that it would cost $254,525 and take four years to redact confidential information from the records.

When the outlet responded, asking how many invoices the department receives per week, they claimed that they do not know.

Evidently, DHHS does not maintain central records of all the invoices it receives. Typically, these invoices are sent to the agency’s district offices across the state by mail, email, fax, or in person, and then they reportedly take four steps to process.

DHHS did not clarify how it arrived at its “good faith estimate” of the cost and timeframe of the request given that it does not even appear to know many invoices it receives each week.

According to the Investigate 8 report, the TV station made a similar request to a different agency which told them they could receive the records after just one month — and for a $250 fee.

Current law allows government agencies to essentially prevent the release of documents, with agencies like the DHHS legally allowed to charge insurmountable fees and under no legal obligation to provide the documents within a certain timeframe.

If an official is exposed for violating FOAA laws, the maximum penalty is a $500 civil fine.

The Maine Wire has repeatedly faced bureaucratic attempts to delay the fulfillment of FOAA requests from Gov. Janet Mills’s office, the Department of Public Safety (DPS), the Department of Administrative and Financial Services (DAFS), the Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP), and the Secretary of State’s office.

Most prominently, the Maine Wire successfully sued the Mills Administration after the governor failed to comply with a FOAA request for records related to her whereabouts in the days before, during, and after the devastating winter storms of 2023.

While the current FOAA laws allow for rampant abuse and obfuscation from officials bent on keeping public records out of the hands of Maine citizens, Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn) is heading up a legislative effort to reform those laws and increase transparency.

Rep. Libby introduced LD 152, which would require government officials and bureaucrats to fully comply with requests within 30 days, preventing the indefinite delays made possible by the current “within a reasonable time” standard.

“The Law’s current language requiring compliance within a reasonable time is too vague to be effective, ad what is reasonable for an agency facing public scrutiny will be vastly different from what is reasonable for a concerned citizen seeking timely information,” said Libby during her testimony on the bill.

Opponents of the bill claimed that the 30-day timeline would be unachievable, but she pointed to multiple other states, including Vermont, California, New York, Illinois, and Maryland, that are able to meet similar and sometimes stricter deadlines.